?(16) Tipperah Strength 353 Admissions 1 Deaths 0 Dacca “ 449 “ 6 “ 5 Midnapore “ 814 “ 42 “ 23 Balasor “ 564 “ 89 “ 37 Cuttack “ 856 “ 216 “ 113 Puri “ 394 “ 26 “ 12 Ranchi “ 235 “ 1 “ 1 Hazaribagh “ 689 “ 154 “ 76 Monghyr “ 468 “ 14 “ 6 Bhagalpur “ 341 “ 46 “ 16 Purniah “ 343 “ 2 “ 1 Gya “ 649 “ 22 “ 12 Patna “ 571 “ 47 “ 18 Digah “ 605 “ 78 “ 28 Arrah “ 492 “ 88 “ 32 Champaran “ 286 “ 20 “ 14 Chaebasa “ 228 “ 136 “ 84 Muzaffarpur “ 457 “ 74 “ 17 Chaprah “ 499 “ 82 “ 19 The strength of the affected jails is 17,618, the percentage of admissions to strength 8 03, and of deaths to admissions 44. Of the 1,415 admissions there were 5 in January, 31 in February, 149 in March, 72 in April, 90 in May, 207 in June, 396 in July, 303 in August, 70 in September, 28 in October, 27 in November, and 37 in December. Taking all the figures together, the monthly prevalence of the disease is shown in the accompanying diagram. The districts shown above to be affected with cholera in 1866 are marked on the map for that year. The cholera of 1866 in the Bengal Province was coincident with a famine in many parts of the country. The incidence of the disease among the jail populations approaches in severity to the cholera of 1863 among the same classes of the people. The figures clearly illustrate the manner in which cholera mortality is aggravated by famine and a distressed condition of the people. Throughout Bengal Proper cholera was generally prevalent in 1866. It was confined to no particular season, but was generally most severe in January, and again in the end of the year. The time at which it appears to have reached its height varied, however, in different districts. In Balasore, for example, it prevailed from January to June ; in Monghyr the most severe epidemic was in August. Throughout the famine tracts it raged with most virulence, and to this disease, with dysentery and diarrhœa, a great part of the lamentable mortality is to be ascribed. In the opinion of Dr. Sheridan, the Civil Surgeon of Birbhum, the extraordinary causes which favoured the spread of these diseases, and which were in operation over great part of the provinces were, first, "A great death of food among the people, owing to a failure in the rice crops, amounting in some parts of the district to actual famine and starvation ; *** second, bad drinking water, owing to the early cessation of the rains in September, and the long-protracted drought which followed, continuing up to the first fall of rain in the middle of June, in consequence of which all the tanks of moderate depth became partially or wholly dried up, rendering any water remaining in them impure and unfit for drinking; *** third, exposure to vicissitudes of weather and extremes of temperature at the most inclement and unhealthy seasons of the year, owing to inability from extreme poverty to procure warm clothing or covering. Want of shelter, too, on the part of large numbers of the poor, whose miserable huts had been destroyed by the unusually heavy falls of rain which occurred in the months of June and July, and where not totally destroyed, inability to re-thatch fallen-in roofs owing to the great scarcity and dearness of straw; fourth, innundations from the overflowing of rivers, which cause great loss and damage to large numbers living near them, in many instances destroying the small quantities of grain that had been rescued from the previous year's scanty harvest ; fifth, con- sumption of new rice by large numbers who had been for months previous suffering from chronic starvation." "Most of the medical officers," writes the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal, "from whom replies have been received, have expressed their belief